We've been talking about relocating for a few years now, and with the wedding coming up, and certain personal reasons we have finally decided to bite the bullet and move. So, one week after the wedding we will be moving to Irvine, California. NXER has been looking at jobs there for the last few months and actually had to miss out on two potential jobs because she could not be there soon enough to start them. She has a really good job in the works right now, and we don't want to miss this one. Today, she's handing her notice to her current employer. We are planning on moving out there without either of us having a job. We have enough saved that we can live there for 2 or 3 months. That should be plenty of time. If it's not, we fly home, having taken a 2 month honeymoon in SoCal.
The big problems are of course, jobs, and the fact that I know very few people out there. As for me, I'm a cook, I can get a job anywhere, people always need to eat. NXER is a QA Data Analyst, so it's harder for her, but she is in a position that every major company needs, regardless of their field, so she has lots of options. To say I know people is not really correct. I have 3 friends in Long Beach that I played WoW with for a year lol. I've talked to quite a few people in the area since we have been considering the move, and we're sure that is where we want to go. Neither of us wanted to be away from the water as we both grew up here on Lake Erie. We didn't want to live in the south east, and NXER veto'd Texas. I have family in Florida and I know I hate it there, so I veto'd that option. We both decided if we're moving, we're done with winter, so anywhere north of the Mason Dixon was out. That left California. Besides, there is so much to do within a few hours of Irvine, or a $100 plane ride away. Add that to never parking our cars for the winter and we were sold. My life is in chaos right now, but it's a good chaos. I feel like my life is cake batter being whipped up to be poured into pan. It's chaos, with a very good outcome.
As I am so fond of saying, Fortune favors the bold. Many adults I talked to here in Buffalo say they considered relocating when they were my age, but didn't and regret it. So many people my age say "You're so lucky!" to which I always reply, "I am ambitious, not lucky." We're willing to take huge risk, and moving to a place we've only seen on the internet. But Buffalo is a dead industrial city. The corrupt mafioso politicians from the last generation lined their pockets letting companies like Hooker Chemical dump so many toxins in the ground that to this day, most industrial property sits empty, seized for back taxes, but worthless as it would take far more to clean it than the land would ever be worth. (See also Love Canal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal ) The truly sad thing is that is not the exception, but the rule. I had, for a time, considered going into politics and cleaning this up, but it's daunting task. Many have tried, and many still are. But the bottom line is, no one wants to spend the money for the clean up, no one wants the land unless it's clean. With the current EPA laws, whomever owns the property is responsible for clean up costs, regardless of who polluted the land or how. So, barring an unforeseen change in the law or clean up technology, it will be 200 years before the land here is useful again. I'm simply not willing to wait that long.
TL:DR
Getting married, moving to Irvine, CA
That was beautiful man, congrats.
